Like nearly everyone else in the once-vaunted Atlanta Braves lineup, Matt Olson’s numbers are way down in the early going of 2025. Through 81 plate appearances, Olson has a .209/.346./343 slash line with just two home runs and nine RBI. These stats are far below his career averages, and paint a picture of a superstar struggling to find his footing in the new season. However, a closer look shows that something strange is going on.
Matt Olson Has Been Snakebit
A glance at Olson’s Baseball Savant page shows that he has been hit by comical levels of bad luck through 19 games. His xwOBA, which predicts expected offensive value based on the overall quality of contact, ranks 15th in all of baseball at .416. However his wOBA, which reflects offensive value based on the actual outcomes of his at-bats, is far lower at .318. This is the fifth largest difference in MLB.
Similarly, Olson’s xSLG stands at .584, 25th in MLB, while his actual SLG is a mere .343, the second largest difference in the game behind Salvador Perez. His .209 batting average is also way behind his .271 xBA. It’s important to note that discrepancies between expected and actual stats are typically exacerbated early in the year and tend to even out over a larger sample size. But when the gaps are as large as Olson’s here, it’s usually time to take note.
He’s Hitting the Ball Hard…
As the expected stats suggest, there is nothing wrong with Matt Olson’s quality of contact thus far. He is finding the barrel often, with an elite 11.1 barrels per plate appearance. As such, his 95.8 mph average exit velocity and 62% hard hit percentage both rank eighth in MLB. These marks are all well above his career averages, and he’s doing it with a great approach (14 walks, 21% K rate). It appears Olson is seeing the ball as well as he ever has, so how can he possibly be running into so many outs?
…Just on the Ground.
The Braves’ first baseman is hitting the ball as hard as ever, but for some reason has decided he likes hitting into the ground rather than over the fence this year. The drop-off (pun intended) from past seasons is astounding; Olson had an average launch angle of exactly 16.1 in each of the last three years, but that number has inexplicably dropped all the way to 6.3 so far in 2025.
He’s pulling the ball at a 46% rate, up from 38.4% a year ago. Meanwhile, his pulled ground ball is nearly double that of last season (36% up from 17%). As such, Olson, who is a pulled fly ball specialist, has seen his rate of those tumble all the way from his career average of 22.4% down to 10%. It’s hard to do real damage without the ability to consistently lift the ball. That said, it’s hard to explain his inability to find holes given the quality of contact, and without the shift anymore.
Here is another attempt at me trying to prove to you that Matt Olson has had the best at-bats of any Braves player this year. A 250 point difference between SLG and xSLG is INSANE! Almost a 70 point difference in BA and xBA. pic.twitter.com/dDzydBTOc2
— Jake Mastroianni (@ShortStopBall) April 17, 2025
The Last Word
While trends like these are as interesting as they are unfortunate for Matt Olson, it’s still too early in the season to truly mean anything. There haven’t been any reports of a swing change under new hitting coach Tim Hyers, so the unusual batted ball data can probably be chalked up to random chance for now. As long as Olson continues to hit the ball with authority and incorporates a bit of lift, he should begin to produce like the top slugger he has been historically. Whether the rest of the lineup will follow his example is another story.
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